whining, because I'm such a whiner

I've been a horrible blog-mistress. I'm sorry. In my (lousy) defense, I've been both busy and sick. 

I took the SAT, got a nasty virus, took challenged the AP English exam with said nasty virus and then crashed for three days. Just when I was starting to feel better (read: yesterday), I started getting hay-fever from willow and cottonwood flowers. 

The allergies are ticking me off more than anything, because since things in Ningbo bloom about a month and a half before things here in the Pacific Northwest, I've already paid my allergy dues this year. 

A week ago, Brynne and I tie-dyed. I feel like an even worse person for not posting photos, but they're all on her camera. (Also, all the pictures of me are baaaad.) I may just have to get her to take more when she gets back from Districts (tennis). 

My goal today is to update the 'about' page since it sorely needs it. Please don't go look until I tell you it's done. 

in which I dangle information

I know I've been a terrible blog-mistress. I'm sorry. I've been disgustingly busy these last couple of weeks, and this week I'm off to Xi'an and Shanghai. If I have internet in Xi'an, I may post some pictures and whatnot, but if not, I promise to tell you all about it when I get home. For reals. 

And when I'm in the States (I leave on April twentieth), I'll try to be better about posting too. And hopefully I'll also have time to update all my other projects. I haven't abandoned them, I swear. I've just been really busy and distracted lately, partially because of schoolwork, but a lot of it because my life may or may not be completely turned upside down and I have to be prepared. If it does turn upside down, you guys will definitely hear about it, both on my blog and on Brynne's. Meanwhile, since everything is still in the works, we ain't saying a thing. :D

stalling, one, two, three...

Things to do online when you're bored/procrastinating (geek version): 

1. make a blog (or three)
2. watch Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
3. go look at all the pretty stuff on thinkgeek.com
4. browse mentalfloss.com
5. browse omniglot.com
6. browse The Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form
7. browse Mysterious Britain and Ireland's Encyclopedia

For some reason, my brain has been in a bit of a funk lately and doesn't want to concentrate on one thing for a long time, so in between writing papers, I'm doing all of the above. It's surprisingly addictive. 

on pens

This afternoon, Mom and I went to Wal-Mart to replenish our dwindling supply of food. Today was the first time I've been in a Chinese grocery store in ages, because we all know I have a distinct aversion to shopping. (I count Wal-Mart in China to be a Chinese grocery store. It has a whole section of dried fish and no tortilla chips.) 

Anyhow, I was in the stationary section looking for 0.7 millimeter pencil leads, because I only have 0.5 millimeter ones, and I saw this: 

Okay, well technically I didn't see the bottle, I saw the little cardboard box encasing the bottle, but you get the idea. Ink reminds me of third grade. See, when you go to Chinese school, you use a pencil for every subject until you get to third grade. Then, when your Chinese (the subject) teacher deems your handwriting neat enough, you 'get' to use a fountain pen. A huge fuss is made of this, and the teacher usually encourages competition between students to see who can use a fountain pen first etc. When I was in third grade, I was thrilled to be in the first ten students ( out of the sixty in my class) who got to use a fountain pen. Writing with  fountain pen was the utmost symbol of coolness, and all the 'big kids' used them. Need I tell you how much of a pain remembering to fill mine up each night was? 

In fourth grade you get to use a fountain pen for math too, and this privilege is given out based on your math grade. Toting around a bottle of ink in the bottom of my backpack and trying to refill my pen without getting navy splatters on my school uniform was really fun. In fifth grade you start using a fountain pen for every subject. Then, when you get to sixth grade, you're suddenly required to use gel pens, because that's what people use in middle school. Not having to deal with the mess and hassle of a fountain pen would be great if it weren't for the catch: almost every teacher requires a different color of ink, and using the wrong pen was a big deal. I remember watching kids get yelled at over it. I was lucky in that because I was really quiet at school, the teachers would use me to separate boys who liked to talk in class, and they (the guy sitting next to me) were always more than happy to lend me one of their pens if I had left mine at home. 

I bought the bottle of ink, because I wanted to use my fountain pen (the one I've been using since fourth grade) to mess around with writing styles for a language that I'm working on, Malian, since I didn't move my last bottle for fear of it breaking. And even though they're somewhat of a pain, I have to confess that writing with a fountain pen just feels right. 

in which I am a geek

Anyway, we all know that I'm a tremendous copycat (last paragraph), but I have finally come to the conclusion that Brynne is way smarter than I ever will be. 

As far back as I can remember, I've had a thing for languages. It may have something to do with the fact that my parents teach English, my mother has a master's in linguistics, I speak three languages and have studied five, but then again it may not. 

Anyway, I've been (quietly) looking for a way to organize (one of) my current projects, and Brynne's idea is perfect. So I'm going to cautiously think about starting a blog for my latest language/world/culture, which is still mainly a concept. Hopefully having it be publicly accessible will make me actually do something with it, even though I'm currently swamped in schoolwork. 

I'll post the link in a future post, if the blog ever makes it way out of pre-production. 

procrastinating...

I've finished all my schoolwork that has to be done today, which is good, but now part of me feels guilty because I'm not ahead, and I usually am. Anyhow, so instead of going over that big, thick book on my desk with 'College Trigonometry' printed on it, I'm procrastinating by iPod Touch-app-shopping. Only it's not really shopping, because I'm only downloading free apps, but still... I can think of better things to do with my time, only they're probably not quite as much fun as deciding which of the three million free Sudoku apps I want to download. 

icky

I have a horrible, miserable cold and no brain to speak of whatsoever. Did I mention that I have a bunch of schoolwork to do? Yuck. 

Christmas vacation is over, and I feel like it should have only just started. One week of vacation really isn't enough at all. I wish I had the same winter schedule as Chinese schools do, where you get six weeks off in the winter. But then again, I want a proper summer vacation as well, and I guess that I can't have it both ways, though not for want of trying. 

happy Christmas!

Right. So on Christmas Eve, I watched Evita, made accounts for a couple of fictional characters, and drank eggnog (minus the rum, of course). This morning, so far I've sat around in my pajamas, successfully not done schoolwork, and eaten an orange roll. There's no holiday like Christmas. 

my fourth grade teacher

Right. Student essay time! My Fourth Grade Teacher, by Layli. 

My Chinese teacher in fourth grade was the head of the Communist party for the region I lived in. And she didn't like me. It made things interesting. I especially loved it when we had to study our yearly mandatory unit in Chinese on patriotism. I kept my mouth shut. It was great fun. 

The end. 

prompting me to say...

Yes, another one of those writing prompt posts. Because nothing that I've been doing lately is blog-worthy. 

#1

List ten things you want to accomplish before it's too late. 

1. Own a puppy-sized elephant
2. Eliminate small-talk from the world
3. Cure klutziness
4. Explore an alternate universe
5. Figure out why I don't like licorice
6. Find out why the answer to everything is 42 and not 41 or 43
7. Own all the books I want
8. Read all the books I want
9. Get a cat
10. Meet Dumbledore :)

#2

What one gift would you like for yourself? 

Um... wisdom. Definitely. 

#3

Things that make me fearful... 

1. People knowing what I'm thinking about/feeling
2. Disappointing someone
3. Having someone be angry with me
4. Not knowing whether I can trust someone or not
5. Being bad at something

#4

My ten favorite movies. 

I'm actually not a huge fan of most movies. There's too much action, and not enough character development, and worldbuilding for my taste. Plus, if the movie's based on a book, the book is almost always better than the movie. 

#5

People that irritate me... 

...generally either have no idea that they irritate me or think I'm jealous of them. 

#6

Describe a typical day in elementary school: 

6:00- wake up, sit in bed and do homework due before lunch that I was too lazy to do the night before. 

6:45- get dressed, eat breakfast, do dishes.

7:15- walk out the door, try to sneak a novel or four to read in class. May or may not get caught. Walk for five minutes, catch bus. 

7:28- Get off the bus. Run. I'm going to be late! Aaaaah! 

7:30- Do morning exercises (choreographed aerobic thingies that everyone hates) if it's spring r fall, jog (highly choreographed as well) if it's winter. 

8:00- Start classes. Usually as soon as the teacher was safely in front of the blackboard, I would either start reading or go into a semi-comatose state, depending on whether or not I was able to sneak a book past my vigilant mother. 

11:30- Look at sauerkraut (if winter) or other disgusting food (if summer) on my plate and gag. Try to hide it in my rice and sneak towards the scrap pail outside my classroom door. Usually get caught by the student monitor who's supposed to make sure we don't waste food. Try to sweet-talk said student monitor into letting me dump icky food, on success, dump food, and on failing, go back to my seat and choke some food down. 

11:45- Sit at my desk and read or write. After everyone else finishes eating, get shooed out of the classroom either by the teacher or the students whose job it is to clean the classroom that week. Grumble, gripe, plead, but go outside eventually (taking my book/notebook of course) unless it's really miserable outside, in which case mention that I might have a cold. 

12:30- Finish my book/realize that my hand is cramped. Go search for some human being that might play with me so that I won't look like a complete loser. Push to play a game that I'm good at/enjoy. Beat them all at it. Feel smug. 

1:00- Sit in class and either talk to the people in front/next to/behind/opposite me or doodle. 

2:30- Do another round of stupid choreographed exercise thingamajigs. 

4:20- Start gathering up my things in preparation for getting out of school. 

4:30- Shoot out of the door as soon as class is dismissed. Walk down the street, buy myself a snack, take my time so that everyone else gets on the bus in front of me. 

4:45- Get home, eat another snack, do homework. 

6:00- Eat dinner. 

6:15- Read. 

9:30- Go to bed. 

#7

Do you work too much? 

No. I don't work enough. 

#8

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think back to being 18? 

Um, I really don't know if I can think back to the future. I'll get back to y'all on that one after I turn 19. 

#9

My favorite time of day... 

I like dawn and evenings, even though midnight is pretty cool too. 

#10

What is truth? 

Whatever I command. 

...

I am not Brynne. I am not Fast Like a Freak. I also have other things to do. Which is why I have only written 22389 words in the past week. 

However, yesterday I read Beowulf in its entirety, write 4000 words, did my Chinese homework, did my English quiz, started Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov, forgot to blog, did half of my math problems for next week and did laundry. 

November is a dreary month. And it's pouring rain again. 

yay!

It's five minutes to four, and I have gotten everything that I want done today done! 

Write at least 1667 words on new novel. Check. 

Finish journalism assignment. Check. 

Do laundry. Check. 

Clean my room. Check. 

Read a bit. Check. 

I've even done a couple of non-essential things like add a pretty web badge to my blog proclaiming my participation in NaNoWriMo. And now that I've told people (gasp), I have to finish. 

work work work

So far I'm ahead on the 84 math problems I have to do this week (having done 30 of them), but I still need to read Beowulf, do a bunch of writing for English class, do a bunch of writing for journalism, write a paper of psychology, and write an essay and memorize a poem for Chinese class. Waaah. I would like to be doing next month's work right now. 

This all because I'm doing a double load of schoolwork. Yeah. But it should be worth it. 

the week in one post

I find myself once again facing having to apologize for not posting. I've been exhausted and busy. I'm leaving to spend a (long) week with my aunt tomorrow afternoon, and my mom's leaving for Shanghai the day after that. (Notice how I didn't actually apologize.) 

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before or not (I probably did), but my youngest uncle is now married. Pictures later. Allow me to say that I spent a weekend in Dallas, ate a ton of really good food, talked to a couple of really cool people, escaped shopping, didn't fall asleep in the middle of 'The Matrix' and laughed a lot. All in all, it was more than satisfactory. 

Hmm... I seem to be overly fond of parenthetical inserts. But they're so convenient that I'm not going to even attempt to limit my use. 

I read 'The Notebook' by Nicholas Sparks yesterday, and 'A Walk to Remember' also by Nicholas Sparks on the day before that. They were fairly good, heart-wrenching, all that... But they were also too sappy for my taste. It's not that I don't like love stories, I just like my characters to be sane and functioning human beings even when they are in love. It's fine to have moments in the book that make me want to go 'aaaw', but after twenty pages straight, the feeling wears off and the characters start to annoy me. However, I do have to admit that they annoy me more in retrospect than when I was actually reading the books. 

So that's pretty much what's happened in this past week. I find it hard to believe that I have to start school in less than two weeks. Oh, yeah. Another thing that happened: I signed up for my courses at Brigham Young. I'll be taking Psychology and Journalism for my electives this semester (or however long it takes me to finish the courses). I hope I have nice teachers. But at least I don't really have to worry about classmates. 

Classmates aren't my thing. After being cooped up in a room with someone not of my choosing for a certain length of time, I invariably feel like finding myself a nice cave in the Adirondack Mountains and spending a year or two there. School is only a good learning environment if you're an extrovert, so I'm really glad I get to escape it three years early. I'm much more productive when I work alone, so hopefully school will be a lot less stressful this year. 

I would like to point out an addition to the 'Favourite Sites' on the bottom left-hand corner of this blog. About the Myers-Brigg Type Indicator deserves a place on my blog, seeing as anything that has to do with psychology fascinates me. Synesthesia is also a new addition. I discovered the article when I was reading (more) about autism. 

clothes and Savannah College of Art and Design

I got back from Mountain View on the day before yesterday. The visit wasn't really bloggable. I tried writing a post about it (three times) and failed miserably. So let me just say that it was really nice to see my mom's side of the family, and that I wish all my cousins who weren't there could have been there. 

My Uncle Joshua is getting married on August 16th. I had a (small) heart attack at the thought of finding wedding clothes. Today, I found a brown skirt with flowers on it that I can wear with a red shirt and black ballet flats I already have (the skirt has little streaks of black, so I think the shoes will be alright). And some of the flowers on the skirt are outlined with little beads and/or sequins. Gasp! I'm wearing sequins? My excuse is that there aren't very many sequins on the thing, and it's a wedding. Anybody should be allowed to wear sequins to a wedding. And that is that. 

And today I got a thick, hefty package from Savannah College of Art and Design. It includes a letter (Greetings! Thank you for your interest in Savannah College of Art and Design. We take great pride in preparing students like you for blah blah blah), a magnet with tour dates and their website on it, a "Application for Admission" which has everything I would ever need, were I actually considering applying, and a magazine/brochure thingie that has 320 pages. Needless to say, I'm not planning on reading it. Some of the photos are pretty though. Maybe I can cut it up and make a collage? At least that'll be doing something useful with it. 

freedom is near

Last night, after I blogged, I was doing the dishes when I re-noticed the kitchen door. The kitchen has a sliding wood door with a glass panel on top, and on the glass is a BUNNY with a FISHING POLE and a PAIL full of sand. Oh, and the bunny is wearing shorts but no top. I had completely blocked it out until the door came off its roller and tried to smash my poor toes.

We also have flying cockroaches taking over the kitchen and mold in every drawer and cabinet (don't ask, it's awful).

I should be writing right now--I haven't written anything anywhere close to decent in a month or so. I've just been way too tired. Hopefully I'll finally have time after tomorrow, because (just in case you weren't aware) tomorrow is the last day of school. Starting at 3:00 pm, GMT +8 I will be FREE!!!

Happy! Wheee!

Must go write now.

aleatory

More than half way through semester exams, I'm developing a head cold, shingles and irritation. Ugh. On the plus side, two more days of school left, and Mom finally accepted the Nottingham job. That's actually VERY good news. It's such a relief to know what's (maybe) going to be happening next year. *

I'm embarking on the daunting quest of reading the archives of Holly Lisle's Blog. Starting right from November '01. I love blogs. They're just like people, each has its own flavour and quirks. I like all people as abstract concepts--their motives and thoughts and reactions fascinate/disgust/astonish/amuse me, or do all at once. It's only when I have to actually deal with some of the people that they burn me out or make me want to scream. But I haven't thrown anything at anybody for quite a while now. I must be getting positively tame!

*What an awkward sentence! And yes, I do read Robin McKinley's blog. It's also fantastic.

chaos

Yesterday was chaotic. Mom and I spent most of the day packing. I had a two hour break during which I talked to Brynne and Carew, and spent another two hours reviewing for exams.

Today was also spent packing. We're to the point where there are boxes all over, but it doesn't looked like we've actually packed anything either. Studied more... played a LOT of solitaire...

And why won't yahoo load? Or yahoo mail? It's quite annoying. I noticed that China has unblocked blogspot though. I wonder why.

1.5 down, 3.5 to go!

I think my exams went well. My mind is going "uh-oh". Last time I thought my exams went well, I did NOT make satisfactory grades (at least A-). Hopefully this time I did better. I'm confident about my English, biology and Chinese exams. It's math that I'm worried about. For the first time in my life, I'm not positive that I'm going to make an A. Ugh. Saxon math must be the worst ever math curricula. NOTHING IN IT MAKES SENSE! Grr...

double, triple, quadruple panic...again

Wow. I have exams tomorrow. The thought just dawned on me. The tiger has pounced, and I've been caught unaware. I must MUST go study for my history final (tomorrow--AAAAAH!!). But I still might end up doing something else and cramming in the morning. Oh well, as long as I can remember the reason why Great Britain wasn't affected by revolutions and reforms in the 18th century.